National Poetry Month: Day Seven

No Poem

This is where I want to refuse
to write, knowing
the telling
will make it real.
Unwritten, perhaps
I could hover just so
above this page
hold my breath
close my eyes
un-write
this.

Scroll back the night
to the still point of a trigger.
Change something.
Change anything.

On the news, the boy who was killed
and we must say this, must speak aloud the words
shot in the back of his thirteen year old head
is scarcely mentioned.
Talk is of the older boy.
The boy with the gun.

And the candle in my window will have to remember
that thirteen was once four, once two
that Isaiah could be any body's name
that a child is a child is a child.

Small things shimmer with meaning
tangled love of an unfinished sock
paper rustling with worry
the orange practically peeling itself
on the table.

My tiny little story.
My tiny circle of light
in this city's night.